So the second week in 201 and we are back in a national lockdown as predicted to be fair as there could be no other outcome realistically. So its introspection central here again. Today I have not ben outside the flat, but I did get out into the countryside yesterday which lifted my spirits for the day. Today though was not so good. I have been working on a recording of a new song and it was a bit exhausting to get it done.Ii am not sure  how well its worked to be honest. Due to personal circumstances I have not done so well as I hoped although I now have all the resources I ever imagined I would or could possibly need.  Some how it seems I have arrived at the port of destination but the ship I hoped to meet there is not in the dock. Its cold and it’s winter but the sky’s been beautiful today at least with the distant tree line on the hills hinting of some new adventure in more normal times. But at present that’s not very likely.  My fellow travelers are gone and I am here like a reluctant hobbit spirited back to the shire after a grand adventure but finding nothing is the same anymore. And of course the pubs are still shut. 

There is a lot of anger about the present restrictions and many people are beginning to feel that that nothing will make any difference.  The first vaccinations  will not be completed until March or possibly April. So restrictions could well be quite severe for a while. How ever it will make very little difference to me now personally now due to the events of the last couple  of years which have left me out on a limb socially and in most other ways as well.    

So I have recorded and mixed my first tune for 2021 and it’s now online. Today I have somehow managed to pass the  day without really doing anything remotely useful.  I feel a little bit burnt out somehow. I am not dealing well with the current situation and mostly my social interactions are fairly casual ones. But they are now pretty much gone. I chat with folks on line a bit and that’s pretty much it. I am sleeping a little too much now as well and the mornings come and go with me somehow in an almost comatose state. Some time wasted on Facebook  and the news which is always mostly grim of course. I have the best intentions to get a bit of exercise and so on but suddenly its early afternoon and then in a flash the light fades and we are  of the fact that it’s January. The Month I was born.  I really dont know where we go from here. I will plow on with musical adventures whilst I am able, but a lot of my cohorte of musical collaborators have dropped by  the wayside and stayed behind or moved on to a different journey on  a path that we do not know or yet to follow on.

I have a head full of memories, and some strange ones that are not for sharing but they seem to be on permanent replay at present. A rather disturbing phenomenon to be honest. I am not too sure how long that is going to carry on but I suppose its been triggered by the circumstances forcing my mind to fall back on its own resources so I doubt it will stop anytime soon.

I wonder what things will be like this time next year? Best try and live in hope if we can. Its not always so easy to keep looking for the sunny uplands.

‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’

(Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2)

The Oxford vaccine has been approved.  So we are now hopefully at half way stage. Maybe we will be somewhere nearer to normality by mid summer then? I really do hope so particularly for those who are now in forced isolation that live alone and have been so in some cases for close to a year. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for those who have not had an enforced retirement from live music and will be able to return to live performances in every sort of environment though this looks as though it may still be many months off it seems. 

It will be a strange overture to the coming year though. For me the last year has been doubly rough having just started to adjust to the loss of one good friend and the changes that ensued from that I just recently lost another.  I played my last gig in february 2020  and its is very possible due to circumstances beyond my control that I may well not be able to continue with much more than occasional live performances in future. Covid restrictions have made it virtually impossible to recruit a new sidekick for live performance sadly. I have also had to consider the possibility that there will not be a suitable candidate so it may be that the last chapter for the Delta Ladies has now been written. 
What comes next is an open question.

On a personal level I have got pretty low now again and keeping my head above water has been difficult. That is possibly going to be a problem with regard to getting out and playing again as my confidence is now toast. I am also having a lot of trouble with my back and related joint problems. If I cannot get much in the way of improvement it will impact on my abilities.  It may be that which puts the brakes on for me in the end.  

I havent mentioned Brexit but there is nothing good in it anyway shape or form. It senses your fear like an errant dog with a nervous postman and just when you think it cant get any worse it draws back its mouth  and displays its teeth.  Or is that just Boris Johnson?